


Always.

by YourFadedGlory (HisNameWasAce)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Divorce, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 05:53:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisNameWasAce/pseuds/YourFadedGlory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Always is never for as long as we <i>hope</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The ink dries before the tears.

**Author's Note:**

> **"Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there." -Sarah Dessen**

“That’s _it_ ?”

Jonny stares at his signature, the ink still drying.

“That’s it.” 

Bridget confirms, giving his shoulder a squeeze as she gathers the papers in front of him, condensing them into a perfectly neat stack. 

Jonny can’t believe it’s that simple.

Seven years of marriage, of promises and love, all completely signed out of existence with a flick of his wrist.

He glanced down the miles of table that separated him from Kaner, to where Bridget was standing with Carly, both of them hovering over Patrick while he put his own name down on the dotted line. 

When he finally set aside the pen, Patrick scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, letting Carly gather what she needs.

They leave the two of them alone, the sound of the closing door echoing around like a gunshot in the stiflingly quiet space.

\---

Jonny wonders how many times they’ve done this, how many newly divorced clients they’ve left sitting in these very chairs, trying to find a way to say goodbye to the person they vowed to love until death tore them apart.

Patrick stood first, ambling over to the door and waiting there, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, and shoulders hunched defensively like they have been for months. 

Hesitantly, Jonny joined him, meeting his eyes for one last heart wrenching moment. 

\---

“I’ll always love you, Patrick.” 

The words come out softly, weighted with sincerity that is too little and too late.

Red rimmed baby blues stare back hollowly, but Patrick’s own whisper is wrought with enough pain that it hits Jonny harder than any on ice check.

“And I’ll always love you.”

\---

As they leave, Jonny spots the next couple that Carly and Bridget are tending to.

Their noses are turned up, eyes filled with utter contempt as they glare daggers across the table.

He almost envies them, the way they hate each other.

He wishes he could hate Patrick, it might have been easier that way. 

By some unspoken agreement, Patrick ends up taking the elevator while Johnny takes the stairs.

And when he reaches the ground floor, Pat is long gone.


	2. Fallen from grace.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one does pissed quite like Sharpy does pissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **“The moon looked like melted mozzarella to my bleary and blurry vision. Was I tired, intoxicated, or in love? Or was I sober, asleep, and alone? ” ― Jarod Kintz**

**|Two Weeks Later|**

Jonny skates laps.

He skates until his knees quiver and knock together, until the muscles in his legs spasm in protest each time he puts one foot in front of the other.

The janitorial staff has learned to leave him be, trusting he’ll flick off the lights and close the door behind him when he leaves.

No one bothers him at the rink.

No one knows how to talk to him anymore, most of them have stopped trying.

Which is why his heart stutters in panic when someone wraps a hand around his upper arm and yanks him to a stop. His feet fishtail, the blades of his skates sticking in the ruts he’s carved into the ice, landing him flat on his butt and staring up at…

“Sharpy.” Jonny breathed, almost disbelievingly.

The other stared back, the teasing smile that had greeted Jonny from his first day on the ice with the Hawks replaced with a cool mask of indifference.

\---

It’s a far cry from the look of sheer rage that Sharpy wore the last time they’d spoken one on one. But then again, it was a generous overstatement to say that there were any words actually said aloud.

Sharpy’s fists had done all the talking, beating him to a bloody pulp in the Blue’s guest locker room, before god and a half dozen reporters. It had taken Bollig, Hossa, and Oduya to pry the enraged alternate captain off, and not before he’d managed to break Jonny’s nose, and beat his face black and blue.

The look of utter disgust on Sharpy’s face, while Hossa and Bollig held him against the stalls, spitting insults like a man possessed was something that would haunt Jonny for the rest of his life. Just the thought of it made his throat tighten uncomfortably.

\---

“What are you doing Toews?”

Exasperation dripped from Sharpy’s words as Jonny tried to pull his arm free, but his teammate’s grip didn’t budge and he seemed thoroughly unimpressed with the attempts he was making at trying to get loose.

“I’m skating Sharpy, that’s something that hockey players do, isn’t it?” 

The nickname rolled off of Jonny’s tongue without thought, and it earned him an unamused eyeroll.

“Let me rephrase the question Toes, why are you here? Why have you been here every night for a week, skating yourself half to death?” 

It isn’t concern in Sharp’s voice, just gruff annoyance as he hauled Jonny roughly to his feet.

\---

No one does pissed, quite like Sharpy does pissed. It’s a cold, all consuming sense of disappointment that literally makes Jonny reconsider the reason for his continued existence.

That’s how much stock he puts into Sharpy’s opinion, and how far he’s fallen from the elder’s graces.

He doesn’t have the room or energy to bullshit.

Sharpy won’t care to get a real answer out of him anyway, so its not exactly like there’s a point in lying, not when the truth is so much easier.

\---

“I’ve got no place better Sharpy.”

Kaner had the kids down in Buffalo, he’d left the same afternoon they’d signed the papers.

Seabs still had a hard time looking him in the eye.

And there were only so many side eye glances, and hushed conversations that Jonny could deal with before taking the hint that he wasn’t exactly a welcome presence around the rest of the guys. 

Not that he blamed them, he wasn’t exactly choice company, but the cold shoulder still hurt.

\---

“This,” Jonny gestured to the ice, the stands, and the banners in the rafters.

“This is all I’ve got left...this is all I’m _allowed_.” 

He wanted to be angry, he wanted his words to bleed with the rage that’s been festering beneath his skin and threatening to tear him apart.

But they don’t.

They fall from his lips just as flat and broken as the teeth Sharpy knocked out of his mouth in St. Louis.

\---

Sighing a long-suffering sigh, Sharpy finally let go of Jonny’s arm, his eyes filled with sullen resignation.

“Go home, Jon.” 

His words weren't uncaring, but they were distant in a way that still left Jonny feeling achy and raw from the inside out.

Even after he’d crawled under the sheets of his bed later that night, sticky from the summer heat, he still felt unnervingly hollow. 

It was only once the first rays of dawn poked through his window, that he managed to fall into a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure where this is going, but it is going.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if this is short and horrible, the idea hit me out of nowhere and I just had to get it down before it killed me.


End file.
